My son and I brainstormed an essay topic last night. I honestly think it could be awesome so we will see how it goes. He’s touring a small LAC with this dad (my ex) this weekend. I’m a bit bummed I’m not going as I am genuinely interested in seeing the school but if it gets to be a true final contender I will visit. Besides DePaul, this LAC is the closest one to home (6 hrs). The visit includes a football game so hoping this lessens the blow of not making it to the state game with his own team.
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We toured Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, and Harvey Mudd. They felt very small to my son, more like small schools near other small schools. Not sure about the vibe at Pomona. My son was immediately turned off by the campus at Claremont Makenna with the dorms right next to the academic buildings, the dining offerings, etc… He thought it felt more like a small boarding school than a university. Some kids may thrive in that environment, just not mine, lol.
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Are your kids only applying to schools that have all majors they are may be interested in? My S24 is thinking about three possible areas of interest that are vastly different (criminal justice, business and sport management). He has a preliminary list of about 18 schools that he plans to narrow down significantly during this year as he visits some of the schools. None of the schools on his list have all three majors. He is set on locations/size (for now) so I am just wondering if in the end it comes down to wherever he gets in he decides what his major will be based on what that particular school offers? My personal experience was so different because I knew I wanted to be a nurse so I only applied to four year colleges with BSN programs and had to be admitted directly into their school of nursing.
We’re somewhat similar in that D23 wants bio research with a focus on either microbiology, marine science, or food science. She’s found a few that have all 3 majors but i don’t think she applied to any schools that didn’t have at least 2 of the options. List will get narrowed down by admissions and $ and then she’ll probably choose by which ones that are left give her the most flex/options in coursework.
D20 wanted nursing so i can relate - that was much simpler!!
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Yes, for D23.
Her younger sibling, though, it’s a bit more difficult. That child picked economics as their primary interest in third(!) grade—but not the financial side, the side that’s more focused on why people make the choices they make. There’s been some wavering lately, though, on whether the interest is really economics, or if it’s something else social science-y. I figure that any college that offers economics with a not purely financial focus, though, will also have anything else the kid might end up interested in majoring in.
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Yes, and potential minors too. S23 is very STEM-y, but he ruled out tech schools. He plans to minor in the humanities (film or poli sci) and seeks diversity of thought/interests in a student body.
His buddy applied EA to MIT because “why would I want to be around non-STEM people?” Different strokes for different folks.
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My son’s schools are all over the map and all different sizes. He is choosing schools where they have both music majors and some sort of business type degree.
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Some good news for your daughter’s diverse interests is that she can safely major in something like biology or chemistry and still focus on those fields. If any of her schools have strength in agriculture or medicine, they’ll certainly have what she needs for a future in micro or in food science. If they don’t have strength in marine, she can just major in bio and do marine in grad school. Anywhere she goes, she can major in biochemistry or do bio major with a chem minor (very common) and do food science. Young people often think (understandably) that niche majors are more useful than they are. In this case they’d just be a bio or chem or ag core major with some specific electives added in. Chem and bio will be offered anywhere, so don’t worry too much about the super specific majors.
Her strategy for narrowing her list seems pretty sound. She’ll need so many core science courses, the specialized classes aren’t going to make up a huge chunk of her studies. So if she loves an affordable school that doesn’t have all the niche majors, she’ll still be fine there. In fact, a bio major with microbiology electives and a chem minor will likely set her up nicely for all 3 of her niches, and she wouldn’t have to decide on her specialty for another few years.
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This is my D23. She knows she wants to do something in the sciences - possibly in sustainability. She’s picking a school that has solid programs in the Natural sciences - physical and life sciences and will take it from there. For her college is a part of the process of figuring out what she wants to do.
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That’s a great strategy. You really can’t go wrong with a core natural science major when it comes to wanting a career in an interdisciplinary science field. You can always get more specialized and/or less “hard sciencey”, but it is much harder to go back and make up for a deficiency in core science courses.
She can get the feel for which aspect of sustainability she likes most. Energy, ecology, management, education, urban planning, conservation, etc. As you can see, one could major in any number of core disciplines and have a career in sustainability! And likewise, you could major in something like chemistry and do a minor in business or bio or poli sci or any number of things to specialize if you want. But maybe she’ll hate chemistry or bio or whatever and she can pivot so some other aspect of sustainability. She’ll have lots of options. That’s the beauty of such an interdisciplinary field!
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We have not found one with all the majors, so he is applying to a variety of schools based on the majors they offer. We have hope it will all work out in the end.
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Remember that 3/4 of college students end up switching majors once they are in college. Your S24 is just ahead of most students that he already knows that he doesn’t know what he wants to major in! My D19 was a Education major and it was a lot easier to develop a list of schools (anecdotally, I think students going into teaching and nursing are more likely to stay the course since it is more of a calling).
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Thanks for this - I’m going to pass this along to her!
I’ve only been to some of these.
FSU is the enemy, because I attended UF for grad school. 
So, don’t go to FSU. 
UF has loads of spirit, pretty campus, lots to do in and around town. I’ve heard the dorms might be dated? Check into that because that could have changed. I wouldn’t go to school in Florida now due to DeSantis wanting cuts at state schools. However, the new UF President might help in that regard.
An alligator yelled at me on the UF campus. I consider that a plus.
My friend’s daughter is in honors at UofSC and LOVES it. I’ve been on campus briefly for a volleyball game (UF versus UofSC). Even if they aren’t UF, this seems like a good school with a deep bench of offerings and facilities. Campus seemed like what you’d expect of a big state school (my favorite kind of school) with large and pretty campus and lots to do.
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UF is going to be high on my daughter’s list, I think (we are not from Florida). Do you really think we need to rethink that in light of Desantis? would her experience at UF be affected in a bad way, or will the schools ranking/reputation go downhill over coming years?
There have been a lot of protests, student and faculty, about Sasse’s hiring. The faculty issued a vote of no confidence in him. The trustees board has certainly changed a great deal since I was at UF (also grad school, @Kombucha22!!).
There are likely forced changes to some curriculum coming as a result of DeSantis’s Stop Woke Act:
Whether that will affect your kid, or the school’s ranking or teaching quality, is very much unknown.
My kid has applied to FSU but he says he is not interested in the state at all anymore.
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Yeah, my D23 had Florida International on her list til late in the process of listmaking, but she’s the child of an academic and so is pretty aware of state interference in higher ed, which took the entirety of Florida off her list. (Like, you expect some, but there’s a point where it crosses a boundary.)
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So this is weird.
The University of Colorado Denver has an application portal, which is linked from the “next steps” part of the Common App. Last Friday the content of that portal for D23 changed to say that an admissions decision had been made, and that the decision letter could be found by clicking the “status update” link.
The problem? There was no such link.
No worries, maybe it just hadn’t been posted. So she and I checked Monday, still no luck, and again today. Still nothing.
But as part of going there today, we accidentally ended up at a completely different University of Colorado Denver admissions portal.
Even weirder, it says that an admissions decision will be released in four days (i.e., this coming Saturday).
So that’s all pretty strange, to say the least.
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Applications submitted today for Holy Cross and William and Mary ( I told him “William and Mary Wont do…” but he applied anyway)
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Pitt has the same weirdness - regular portal and then a document portal that is not linked to anywhere on the regular portal.
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